How To: Prevent a Leak From Causing a Flood

A little water can cause major damage to your home. We know this first-hand: Three years ago, SmartThings CEO Alex Hawkinson discovered that a leaky pipe had caused his entire home to flood. By the time he and his family discovered the damage, his porch and basement were rotting, and his home had endured $80,000 worth of structural damage.

With SmartThings, you can get an instant notification on your smartphone if there’s water where it doesn’t belong–such as under a pipe, in a basement, near a drain, etc–by purchasing a SmartSense Moisture sensor. This early warning can then allow you to turn off the water valve from your phone, notify a neighbor or plumber, and help you save thousands of dollars in repairs.

Here’s how to set it up:

To learn how other customers are using SmartThings to prevent water damage in their homes, check out these stories:

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This would be even better if I could shut off my z-Wave whole house water valve as soon as a moisture sensor is wet. But up to this point there is no way to do this. All you can do on the local / house side is sound a audible alarm. Having just been through a $150k rebuild due to a water leak I would really like to have this functionality.

jim

Not all is lost here. Look into a control ball valve that will work via putting 12v to that will plug in and when you short two wires together it will close. If you are handy you can do this on the cheap. If you want to do it quickly use a product such as water cop. It has a RJ45 jack and the pin out is you short two pins via a relay and it will close the ball valve (cut into the main). . The relay can be a zwave door sensor. you can have smartthings or any home unit use water sensor that then triggers a relay that will short out the water cop (connected to the main) that will shut off the water to the house. You can use a relay also connected to your whole house firealarm (B&K sells their own relay) that you can do the same so that if your house smoke alarm goes off you will get notified (same basic principle).
Jim

That valve is not the problem. My Fortrezz z-wave valve works great and shows as a device in SmartThings app. The issue is in the SmartThings app. In the app there is no way to make a moisture sensor activate anything other than a Siren Alarm.

In the video they show the ability to activate a valve but that code has never been released to the public. I have been asking for it to be released since last November when I experienced my loss.

Frank

I agree with Philip. I just went through a major house flood and $90K rebuild last year due to a faulty flex hose to a toilet. As a direct result of this very stressful event, I purchased the SmartThings hub, Fortrezz water sensors and Fortrezz water valve to prevent a similar event from ever happening again. I later found out that the automated water sensor-to-valve shutdown push/link is not supported. I need an automated function because I’m not always near my cell phone during the day to receive alerts. I have been waiting for this function to appear for some time now. The video is false advertising.

Frank

I take it back. I just found the application that was written for it and posted July 16! It works! Thanks!

John Smith

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